The latest preview for the anime version of Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight Axis has debuted today!

The anime will be a short animation in six installments. Shorts 1-5 will be about 3 minutes each and the final one will be about 8 minutes. Episode 1 will debut for free on the Gundam Fan Club, GundamInfo, Yatate Bunko, Banday Channel and Youtube. Subsequent episodes will have advance showings via the Gundam Fan Club.

NEW CHARACTERS & MECHA!

Mehmet Merca: Belongs to the “Ministry’s Department Six” of the Intelligence Bureau under the direct control of the Earth Federation Government. He is the commanding officer of the Earth Federation Forces Special Forces “Mastema” unit. His rank is Lieutenant JG. He is ordered to collect research materials related to the psycho frame from a research facility that is located within Axis. He requests Arlette and Danton to accompany his team as guides to Axis and acts as their guard.

Quentin Fermo: A Cyber Newtype attached to the mysterious armed organization called “Birnam” which attacked “Mastema” that entered Axis to investigate. He appears to have been subject to various experiments at the Newtype labs established at the Earth Federation Forces Augusta base. His current background and reasons why he appeared at Axis are unknown.

RGM-89 Jegan (Birnam Affiliated Unit): A suit used by the mobile suit unit led by Quentin Fermo which attacked the Mastema special forces led by Mehmet. It is the main mass production suit of the Earth Federation Forces. The route which “Birnam” obtained this suit and the details of the unique upgrades made to it are not clear.

RX-160G Byarlant Isolde: A mobile suit from the mysterious “Birnam” forces which attacked the Mastema special forces. Quentin’s younger brother Walter Fermo is the pilot of this unit. Although it is an upgraded suit based on the Byarlant, the way it was acquired and development history are unknown.

AMX-104 R-Jarja: A prototype mobile suit for close combat that is descended from the YMS-15 Gyan of the Principality of Zeon. It was developed by the Neo Zeon and left in a storage dock on Axis. It was a suit that Arlette once worked on.

SUMMARY

It is the later half of U.C.0096. The Earth Federation government, threatened by the existence of the “psycho frame,” organizes the “Mastema” special forces unit under Lieutenant JG Mehmet Merca who is under the direct control of the Intelligence Bureau. He is handed down vital instructions to infiltrate and investigate a severed portion of Axis floating in the Earth Sphere.

Among the members of the investigation team accompanying him are two civilians: Arlette Almage and Danton Hyleg, a former engineer and test pilot for the Principality of Zeon and Neo Zeon.

The investigation team that infiltrated Axis comes under attack by a new model “Gundam” of the private group “Birnam” at a base where no one should be. Although Danton and Arlette fight back with a red Zaku III Custom whose development they were once involved in, they encounter various critical stages.

Among them are certain “feelings” Arlette hid in her heart as she heads for the remains of the Sazabi, left abandoned on the surface of Axis…

Damn and I thought S2 of thunderbolt was over compressing its source material. Can't say i'm thrilled about this especially since I enjoyed the first few chapters. Now the question is will this cover the entire novel, which is still ongoing, or just up to a certain point?

-Overall I like the whole idea of revisiting Axis and have a mixed EF and Zeon time for the tour.

-The connections between previous and following works (chronologically speaking) sounds good so far.

-One of the central plot lines seems to confirm something that had been speculated on some mangas and video games: That Haman's Axis/Neo Zeon might have been the one that came up with the Psycho Frame concept, likely with the help of Nanai Miguel who according to a MSGZ manga defected from the EF/Titans to Axis/Neo Zeon.

I would really like if someone who can understand japanese could confirm if the reason for the battle between Char's Neo Zeon and Glemy's Rebels Remnants on U.C. 0090 (part of the Missing Link story) might have been seizing the psycho frame research from the later. With Axis under EF control Char would have been unable to retrieve any data from it between U.C. 0089 - 0093 (but leaving the door open for Twilight of Axis).

However, Glemy's forces had seized control of the asteroid before the end of the 1st Neo Zeon War and deployed many of the prototype machines. They seem to have left Axis by the time Glemy was killed and left with a NZ-000 Quin Mantha and who knows what else (I for one would be inclined to think that the Neo Zeon forces from the ZZ Gundam Evolve episode, pursuing a runaway Qubeley Mk II piloted by a Puru clone, were also part of this group).

As a side note, since this battle takes place just a year after the end of the 1st NZ conflict, maybe it was upon seizing the Glemy remnants assets that they became aware of the Puru clones and began their search for any survivors, resulting in Zinnerman finding Puru Twelve (Marida).

I doubt that however Full Frontal was created, it involved retrieving data from the Sazabi wreckage: leaving aside that it would have been difficult to do so with the EF's surveillance, I would presume that any relevant data would have likely been located on the Sazabi's cockpit, which was ejected with Char inside. I'm more inclined to think that during the development and testing of the Sazabi, as well as the development of the Psycho Frame, Miguel Nanai might have recorded data on Char relevant for such purposes.

On the other hand, if Neo Zeon actually searched Axis after the 2nd Neo Zeon War, it might have been more relevant to retrieve the Sazabi itself and give it to Full Frontal as a further symbol of him being Char, rather than giving him a red AMS-119C before the capture of the Sinanju.

I guess it should come to no one's surprise that unless you've read the novel you'll have no idea what's going on. Hell, even if you've read the novel there's not much to enjoy. The episode pretty much compresses 2-3 chapters into less than 4 minutes.

The episode feels more like its an advertisement for the novel. "Hey you wanna now what's going on? Well F*** you, go read the novel."

Haven't been following this development closely; Youtube recommended a video, I watched it, and I honestly didn't know if it was an "episode" or an awkwardly-silent trailer until it got to "Ep 2 coming in 2 weeks".

EDIT: That was seriously the episode? I am not shocked by the short run-time, I knew that going into it, but I am shocked by the terrible editing at parts, the almost completely incoherent story, and how this seems to be an unfinished project to something that is (maybe) bigger.

If you have a short run time, why not just use it on a single scene (like the cafe scene that seemed to be important)? Why do twenty different scenes with flashbacks? The time-line and structure is so incomprehensible it makes me wish someone would just scream that the 'world is not a square' as if that makes any damn sense and shoot someone else in the butt with a sling-shot.

Can't wait for the movie version: GUNDAM TWILIGHT AXIS the MOVIE: THIS TIME WITH AN ACTUAL STORY!

For something that's supposed to be distilled to 3 minute snippets, it should've gone with a series of vignettes that could be strung into a narrative thread.

Instead, the first episode is a disjointed, time-jumping mess that's very difficult to even understand without looking at the source material. It's essentially just a promo for the novel so far, rather than an actual adaptation.

My expectations were already low after hearing the initial runtime, but somehow they still managed to disappoint.

I'll have to rewatch it once all the episodes come out and reassess it as a whole. Maybe the next episodes will be a comprehensible set of events. But, as of now, expectations set to zero.

Edit: When they finish the releases, maybe it can be re-edited into a more coherent single episode OVA with some extra footage. Like December Sky was. That said, I don't think this first episode even has enough material to cobble into a functional scene.

Great premise! Great mecha! Interesting characters! More implausible scene cuts than Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer! Now if the staff could make it seem like more than the teaser trailer to the story we are supposed to be getting. Did anyone else besides Uncle Zeo get confused when the credits ran so soon?

"I am fire. I am death. I am Hashmal."

"Discontent is the first step in the progress for a man or a nation." - Oscar Wilde